Sub Bass - Is there such a pedal?

[Linus27]

Is there a pedal that will allow me to create some low deep sub bass tones? I do have the Boss OC-5 Octave pedal which does thicken the sound nicely but it also gives that typical Pino/Tony Levin octave sound which is not what I am after. I would like to create a smooth low sub bass sound. Is there a pedal that can do that?

[lidl e]

The pigtronix mothership 2 has a sub bass out jack. 

 

I think you can dial back all the synth and just habe the sub output and a dry signal.

 

I havent used it. I wired it up once, but it was at home and couldnt really frank it.

Edited June 29, 2023 by lidl e

[pantherairsoft]

DOD Meatbox or Mantic Density Hulk is the pedal you are looking for.

Be warned - most bass cabs don't handle subs like you think they will. The Meatbox has wrecked more speakers than you can imagine. Ideally you want to run these pedals via a DI straight into a venue's PA to drive their subwoofers. You can put them through your rig and feel the subs, but keep it dialled back... crank those 30hz and pay the price

For a suitable half-way house, the Aguilar Octamizer is an octave pedal that has an EQ filter on it, meaning that it can roll our the higher more synthy octave tones and just keep the lows. It's not going to get you the Meatbox lows, but it will give you a more sub-like octave tone.

Edited June 29, 2023 by pantherairsoft

[Reggaebass]

I don’t know much about pedals but playing reggae and dub I did experiment a bit with a few to get really deep bass , the only one I found good that I still use occasionally is the Ampeg bass preamp, you can boost the bass and it still sounds good without that distorted sound if your cabs can take it, there might be a few suggestions here 

 

[0175westwood29]

10 hours ago, pantherairsoft said:

DOD Meatbox or Mantic Density Hulk is the pedal you are looking for.

Be warned - most bass cabs don't handle subs like you think they will. The Meatbox has wrecked more speakers than you can imagine. Ideally you want to run these pedals via a DI straight into a venue's PA to drive their subwoofers. You can put them through your rig and feel the subs, but keep it dialled back... crank those 30hz and pay the price

For a suitable half-way house, the Aguilar Octamizer is an octave pedal that has an EQ filter on it, meaning that it can roll our the higher more synthy octave tones and just keep the lows. It's not going to get you the Meatbox lows, but it will give you a more sub-like octave tone.

Everything panther said!!

 

the mantic is a bit cleaner sounding the meatbox has a slight dirt to it, but yeh if you want sub......they are kinnda the only options

[Linus27]

Thanks guys, just watched a demo of the DOD Meatbox and it looks like it might just do the trick. Thank you.

[ped]

Another alternative is a DOD FX25 with the sensitivity down so the filter barely opens. Super subby

[DGBass]

I did a support gig back in the late 90s for a US band called 3D House Of Beef and those guys knew all about sub bass. A lot of their tunes were played at around 30 BPM and the bass was also tuned to drop D. I recall speaking to their bass player to ask him what he was using on his board and his main pedal was a DOD Meatbox. Never heard anything like them since and to get the best from it I suspect you will need amplification that can cope with serious low end.  The 3D House Of Beef guy was using a full SVT 8x10 rig with additional 1x18 subs 😲 Their album 'Low Cycle' is a good indication of the sub bass tones a Meatbox can do.

[Linus27]

9 hours ago, DGBass said:

I did a support gig back in the late 90s for a US band called 3D House Of Beef and those guys knew all about sub bass. A lot of their tunes were played at around 30 BPM and the bass was also tuned to drop D. I recall speaking to their bass player to ask him what he was using on his board and his main pedal was a DOD Meatbox. Never heard anything like them since and to get the best from it I suspect you will need amplification that can cope with serious low end.  The 3D House Of Beef guy was using a full SVT 8x10 rig with additional 1x18 subs 😲 Their album 'Low Cycle' is a good indication of the sub bass tones a Meatbox can do.

 

Awesome and thank you. I'm hoping my Barefaced Two10 will be able to cope as I'm not planning on having anything too deep, loud or heavy going but more of a case that if I play a B for example on the A string, it will give me a nice sub B, not too dissimilar to playing the B on a 5 string or the equivalent of an octave down.

[Daz39]

TC Electronic Sub'n'Up?

[Linus27]

1 hour ago, Daz39 said:

TC Electronic Sub'n'Up?

 

It that not just an octave pedal that will do the octave note as well or can it do just the low note?

[pantherairsoft]

2 hours ago, Linus27 said:

 

Awesome and thank you. I'm hoping my Barefaced Two10 will be able to cope as I'm not planning on having anything too deep, loud or heavy going but more of a case that if I play a B for example on the A string, it will give me a nice sub B, not too dissimilar to playing the B on a 5 string or the equivalent of an octave down.

It's worth considering something like an SFX Micro Thumpinator after it - this will allow you to push the subs while also cutting the ultra lows that your cab can't reproduce. The result here will be that those super lows get removed and give the amp more headroom. This is particularly important as the Meatbox will push your amp to it's limits anyway.

[snorkie635]

5 minutes ago, Linus27 said:

 

It that not just an octave pedal that will do the octave note as well or can it do just the low note?

I take it your house/practice space is/are well insured? 😂

[Salt on your Bass?]

What sort of music do you play? I'm surprised your going for a 'subby' sound if you're playing a retro 210 as they roll the lows off to provide that vintage vibe. 

Do you want it to sound subby, or do you want it to sound like a 'normal' low B? 

I found the meatbox unless everything was cranked and you wanted to all out sub, was a little unversatile / less effective. 

not sure if a more standard octaver would do what you need?

just a thought ✌️

[Daz39]

2 hours ago, Linus27 said:

 

It that not just an octave pedal that will do the octave note as well or can it do just the low note?

It has a dry knob. turn it down, and turn Sub 1 or Sub 2 up and boom. Or rather, Blatt...

 

[Linus27]

1 hour ago, Salt on your Bass? said:

What sort of music do you play? I'm surprised your going for a 'subby' sound if you're playing a retro 210 as they roll the lows off to provide that vintage vibe. 

Do you want it to sound subby, or do you want it to sound like a 'normal' low B? 

I found the meatbox unless everything was cranked and you wanted to all out sub, was a little unversatile / less effective. 

not sure if a more standard octaver would do what you need?

just a thought ✌️

 

So I'm beginning to wonder if maybe I'm not being totally clear in the effect I'm trying to create but you are right in it sounding like a normal low B rather than stubby.

It's very hard to describe the type of music we play but we have a singer who plays an acoustic so think of a Damien Rice singer songwriter type set up. Plus he adds vocal layers etc. Our drummer plays a small percussive kit using brushes only and shakers. I play fretless and either fill the bottom end or play a more cello role but my tone is the other end of the guitar if that makes sense. I also use a lot of octave to really fatten the sound but it would be good to try and have an effect that creates the low end but doesn't give the doubling up of notes effect that an octaver produces. 

In the studio, for certain moments in the track when everything drops out or ends, we boosted the low end on the bass or I played an extra track of just a single low note and then the low frequencies were boosted to have that big bass push 

 

So I'm not sure if this will show what I'm after, and this is absolutely nothing like the music we play, but listen to about 2m 55s of this song, the bass is subtle but very low and it's probably done on a keyboard but it's this sort of thing. You might need headphones for some of these examples or I might just need a 5 string bass 😂

 

 

From about 1m 14s of this song, very subtle but the second note is super low especially.

 

 

Again from about 42 seconds in this song,

 

 

 

[0175westwood29]

22 minutes ago, Linus27 said:

 

So I'm beginning to wonder if maybe I'm not being totally clear in the effect I'm trying to create but you are right in it sounding like a normal low B rather than stubby.

It's very hard to describe the type of music we play but we have a singer who plays an acoustic so think of a Damien Rice singer songwriter type set up. Plus he adds vocal layers etc. Our drummer plays a small percussive kit using brushes only and shakers. I play fretless and either fill the bottom end or play a more cello role but my tone is the other end of the guitar if that makes sense. I also use a lot of octave to really fatten the sound but it would be good to try and have an effect that creates the low end but doesn't give the doubling up of notes effect that an octaver produces. 

In the studio, for certain moments in the track when everything drops out or ends, we boosted the low end on the bass or I played an extra track of just a single low note and then the low frequencies were boosted to have that big bass push 

 

So I'm not sure if this will show what I'm after, and this is absolutely nothing like the music we play, but listen to about 2m 55s of this song, the bass is subtle but very low and it's probably done on a keyboard but it's this sort of thing. You might need headphones for some of these examples or I might just need a 5 string bass 😂

 

 

From about 1m 14s of this song, very subtle but the second note is super low especially.

 

 

Again from about 42 seconds in this song,

 

 

 

seems like you want some sub bass for sure not just a standard octave, however i know for the dua lipa track sound you could get close with an oc2 ( turn off the dry) and a subtle chorus

 

for me id only use the dod meatbox into a di, and i use mine as an always on sub under my main sound, i think as salt says you might be better using a standard octave

 

 

[Linus27]

14 minutes ago, 0175westwood29 said:

seems like you want some sub bass for sure not just a standard octave, however i know for the dua lipa track sound you could get close with an oc2 ( turn off the dry) and a subtle chorus

 

for me id only use the dod meatbox into a di, and i use mine as an always on sub under my main sound, i think as salt says you might be better using a standard octave

 

 

 

Ok, thank you. I have an OC-5 but it doesn't have a dry knob. The Sub n Up suggested earlier might do the trick.

[0175westwood29]

1 minute ago, Linus27 said:

 

Ok, thank you. I have an OC-5 but it doesn't have a dry knob. The Sub n Up suggested earlier might do the trick.

Oc5 can do an oc2 just think of the direct dial as dry, set the switch to vintage turn the octave up off and -1 octave all the way up

[Linus27]

6 hours ago, 0175westwood29 said:

Oc5 can do an oc2 just think of the direct dial as dry, set the switch to vintage turn the octave up off and -1 octave all the way up

 

Ok cool, will give that a try, thank you.

[LukeFRC]

Source audio C4? All the octave you want without analogue glitching - and as one of those examples seemed more like a synth than a bass which you would get with the C4 

[Higgie]

On 29/06/2023 at 23:32, ped said:

Another alternative is a DOD FX25 with the sensitivity down so the filter barely opens. Super subby

This is what I would try first! Relatively inexpensive and you get a great filter too!

[xgsjx]

I used to get my sub bass sound by using a Boss OC3 with just the -1 oct & then into a Moog MF-101 low pass filter. 
Now I get it with a Roli Rise & Equator. 
 

If you’re determined to use bass guitar & FX, then a -1 octave into a low pass filter with the cutoff dialled back a good bit should get you very close. You can add dirt & chorus just after the octaver if you want a thicker sound. 

[Linus27]

 

8 hours ago, xgsjx said:

I used to get my sub bass sound by using a Boss OC3 with just the -1 oct & then into a Moog MF-101 low pass filter. 
Now I get it with a Roli Rise & Equator. 
 

If you’re determined to use bass guitar & FX, then a -1 octave into a low pass filter with the cutoff dialled back a good bit should get you very close. You can add dirt & chorus just after the octaver if you want a thicker sound. 

 

Just reading up about a low pass filter as this sounds like it might be an interesting idea. 

 

[Downunderwonder]

On 30/06/2023 at 23:04, Linus27 said:

 

Awesome and thank you. I'm hoping my Barefaced Two10 will be able to cope as I'm not planning on having anything too deep, loud or heavy going but more of a case that if I play a B for example on the A string, it will give me a nice sub B, not too dissimilar to playing the B on a 5 string or the equivalent of an octave down.

Back up the bus and talk to Alex if you don't believe me. What jollies you are getting from your BF210 and a 5er low B is all 60hz and up. If you pump it full of 30hz you will kill it. It will either turn it into heat or give it conniptions.

 

You should employ a proper high pass. Any PA you are likely to plug into will be highpassed 50hz or so anyway.

 

What everyone thinks of as "low bass" is an octave higher than its fundamental.

 

The problem is when you give a speaker a pumped up fundamental it distorts. That distortion is the first overtone. Your brain assembles that with the other pure harmonics as the tone of the fundamental. Similarly an 810 low E sounds like a low E, ain't no 40hz in it.